October 1, 2007

I'm disgusted with the use of Congress for political posturing like this. So Rush Limbaugh said something that can be construed to insult soldiers. Whatever. This shouldn't be taking up time in Congress. It's a damn radio show. You're Congress. Why not just go home and shut off the lights when you leave?

ADDED: I noticed that someone -- too abusive to link to -- thinks that this post is inconsistent with this one:

I don't know about you, but I cannot bear the personal attacks on Petraeus. Argue with him on what his report means, find the holes in the statistics, cross-examine him, but respect him.

There is absolutely no inconsistency. This post is about Congress spending its time passing resolutions denouncing private citizens for things they say. It doesn't take a position on what Limbaugh actually said. I didn't like Congress wasting time trying to pass a resolution about the MoveOn.org ad either. That's a subject I didn't happen to write about, but the assumption that I supported that resolution is wrong.

On the one hand, you are absolutely right that this is a terrible waste of time, and so was the silly insistence to condemn MoveOn.org on the floor of the Senate. The endless hearings, and a myriad of other Congressional acts are equally meaningless.

On the other, when they aren't wasting time, they tend to make bad laws, so given the alternative, I'll take a do-nothing Congress wasting time over symbolic acts over a do-something Congress passing bad laws.

The federal government should be limited, all three branches, the individual states should reclaim the rights that the Constitution says they have. Congress should meet less frequently, and the members of Congress should be expected to spend much more time in their home districts and states.

While waiting for a federalist to get elected President and sway the public discourse towards federalism again (like Pres. Reagan did), a Congress tying itself up in knots with useless gestures is a distant second best alternative.

Do those who feel this was a waste of time feel the same way about how much time was wasted in Congress arguing about a newspaper ad last week?

Congress has an obvious interest in refuting left-wing claims that testimony before Congress, requested by Congress, by a general confirmed by Congress, consisted of a web of lies and half-truths promoted by a traitor. In contrast, it is unclear why Congress should care what Rush Limbaugh says about the news media and its interview habits.

Still, they're welcome to discuss it all they want. I'd appreciate it if they spent the next 18 months arguing over Rush Limbaugh while the grown-ups handle the actual business of running the country and the war. Just keep the war funding coming and focus on thinking up ways to flip-flop back to "I supported the war all along" once we've won it.

Sure, Eli. I'd agree that it was a waste of time for the House and Senate to condemn the MoveOn.org ad, as condemnable as it was. In fact I'll even argue that it set a precedent that MediaMatters is now exploiting.

I love how Media Matters "misquotes" people. By posting the transcript and accompanying video clip of them saying it. They're more than happy to post the context, which mostly is worse than the offending remark itself.

Debating stupid resolutions is about all Congress can do, as evenly divided as it is. Since the country itself is just as evenly divide, it's a state of affairs that should make us all happy, since it reflects political reality in the US.

I tend to agree with that emotion and I think the sponsors would, too. But the Senate is doing it right. They're sending a letter to his boss and asking for signatures.

But precedent has been established with the MoveOn condemnation and, if we're to be a fair nation, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Didn't hear you speak up when MoveOn was the subject of a Senate resolution.

Rush Limbaugh is more than just a radio host, though. He's the voice of American conservatism. Further, radio hosts, as we've been told for the past 20 years, are politically powerful. So, the powerful are game for criticism.

Oh, and he should be kicked off of Armed Forces Radio because he's demoralizing the troops in time of war. And a Wank Heir.

Oh, and he should be kicked off of Armed Forces Radio because he's demoralizing the troops in time of war.

Demoralized the troops?

Under the normal interpretation of his remarks, he insulted people who either aren't soldiers at all or who are misrepresenting their service (e.g., Macbeth). There's no reason to care if frauds feel insulted or not, so no problem there.

Under your interpretation of his remarks, he insulted actual soldiers who speak out against the war. Now, either those soldiers are no longer on active duty -- in which case their morale is unimportant to the war -- or they're still on active duty, in which case their morale IS important but obviously already sucks. Plus, of course, active-duty military personnel aren't supposed to do that sort of thing.

Either way, the morale of our troops in the field isn't being hurt.

But hey, let's for the sake of argument that (a) Limbaugh's hurting morale and (b) that people who hurt our soldiers' morale should be banned from Armed Forces Radio/TV. That would mean banning Limbaugh... and Pelosi, both Clintons, Al Gore, Reid, Obama, Edwards, Richardson, most of CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, and CBS, pretty much all foreign news. Oh, and Murtha, obviously -- he's managed to hurt morale so much that he's actually being sued by the soldiers he defamed.

The problem with calling for people who hurt morale to be censored, Alpha, is that almost everyone doing that is on YOUR side. Calling for that kind of censorship is not only un-American, but tactically stupid as a political matter.

As long as Congress is making a fool of itself, there is no waste of time in their vapid silly posturing over comments on a radio program that concerned a phony named MacBeth.

Harkin is the silliest Senator in a chamber full of foolish egomaniacs. Reid is a caricature of a weak, crack-voiced, over the hill and over the top politico who should have been put out to pasture a while back. But he's useful in demonstrating just how weak & powerless the Dem leadership is. No real American takes him seriously. Sort of like John Edwards in the Dem POTUS race.

Over the past year, Gallup, Pew, Zogby, Rasmussen have all taken polls that show about 35% of Americans consider themselves conservative & 20% liberal.

Those pesky facts never stop the surreality-based community from yammering endlessly about stealing elections yadda yadda yadda.... Harkin is one of those s***-for-brains libtards who resemble their hare-brained "we are losing" leader, Dingy Harry Reid.

They always think they're going to win and then they lose because they are loo-zers.

BTW, did anyone catch Amy Poehler describing the Dem candidates on STL? When she came to Edwards at the end, she called him an "ambulance-chasing, charlatan rat bastard" and the audience broke out into scattered applause!!!

Rush's 15 minutes are long over. He's a doper who should be in jail like thousands of black men. He has no standing to talk about soldiers because he took advantage of a hairy ass cyst to avoid military service. A patriot would have had surgery.

The condemnation of the MoveOn ad was a pitiful display of MeTooism designed to shame the left into supporting the troops. The deliberate misconstrual of Limbaugh's remarks is the left's payback.

However, if anyone but the anti-military left actually thought Rush spoke "against the troops", I haven't heard it yet. What a bunch of pusillanimous poseurs. House, show us your best cheese, and cite active military in Iraq protesting Limbaugh's phrasing. Let's see it.

When did Democrats start to believe that dissent was the only form of patriotism?

Fact is, MediaMatters is obsessed with getting Hillary elected. That is not even a debatable issue.

And, yes, they misquoted Rush. They cut out the context and simply placed a small snippet of what was said. Rush discussed the issue THAT MORNING before his show aired as well, which seems to be ignored.

They are going to shout down and silence anybody who doesn't agree with Hillary. That is reality.-=Mike

Congress has an obvious interest in refuting left-wing claims that testimony before Congress, requested by Congress, by a general confirmed by Congress, consisted of a web of lies and half-truths promoted by a traitor. Really? Silly me. I'd have thought that Congress would have an "obvious interest" in finding out whether there's any TRUTH to the "claims that testimony before Congress, requested by Congress, by a general confirmed by Congress, consisted of a web of lies and half-truths" . . . . If in fact they found that there was no truth, fine. THEN condemn the ad, and let the general bring a defamation claim.

I'm disgusted too. I was equally disgusted two weeks ago when they passed a resolution condemning a newspaper ad.

Anyone whose disgust only gets triggered under one of those scenarios is the person Congress is trying to pander to with these resolutions, and should consider his/her own role in creating our sorry political discourse.

Some of you are assuming that because he read Rand, he swallowed it whole. That is incorrect. He read her philosophy and "I didn't fully accept its tenets, [but] her vision of the world made more sense to me that that of my left-wing friends. 'Do your own thing' was their motto, but now I saw that the individualism implicit in that phrase was superficial and strictly limited. They thought, for instance, that it was going to far for a black man to do his thing by breaking with radical politics, which was what I now longed to do."

I was tuning in the shine on the light night dialDoing anything my radio advisedWith every one of those late night stationsPlaying songs bringing tears to my eyesI was seriously thinking about hiding the receiverWhen the switch broke 'cause it's oldThey're saying things that I can hardly believeThey really think we're getting out of control

(CHORUS) Radio is a sound salvationRadio is cleaning up the nationThey say you better listen to the voice of reasonBut they don't give you any choice 'cause they think that it's treasonSo you had better do as you are toldYou better listen to the radio(Elvis Costello, Radio, Radio)

The phenomenon of fake soldiers serving Lefty agenda goes back to Vietnam and the "Winter Soldier" media event. The Left had university drama students come in and pose as atrocity-committing GI Vets, along with some actual malcontent court-martialled Vets who were no where near Vietnam.

The media lapped it up.

Since then, the "fake soldier" is a predictable fixture from Congress (Tom Harkin) to Blogs. The Left understands that the media finds combining "anti-war" with "War hero that is anti-war" is a lie worth pursuing because you get the message out and agenda advanced when media and public can be gulled into seeing that message as credible if said by someone with medals.

Except so many Lefties not only despise the military, but know nothing about it, and are readily tripped up in lies.

The Lefty invariably must claim to be an elite soldier for extra credibility As an ex-Navy SEAL, I oppose the evil Bush McHitlerburton and his racist war!. I'm new to this debate, but as an Army Ranger officer with 3 purple hearts, a Silver Star, and an Undersea Demolition Team Leader Award from Iraq, I can tell you that killing babies is a normal thing...

But they don't know the lingo or culture and get tripped up by actual Vets in elite military groups within a few sentences. When they stupidly step out of anonymity, they are sniffed out fast and forced to apologize, remove themselves from office - because they steal the honor and valor of real soldiers by their false claims.

Real ex-SEALS have a whole group that runs a website and people around the country dedicated to catching fake SEALs.

Limbaugh just described a well-known phenomenon the Vet and currently serving military despise and seeks to expose - the Lefty using the fake soldier dodge, the person that seeks to advance their career with false resume items of military service.

Media Matters is a Soros Group operation mainly funded by him and another Jewish billionaire, Peter Lewis. I doubt a single person working for them has a military record. They are dedicated to smearing the Right and promoting both Hillary and the progressive Jewish agenda.

There are actual Vet anti-war soldiers and plenty of currently serving that will criticize the war - mainly from the standpoint that the backstabbing Iraqis aren't worth their blood and that ROE prevent them from killing Iraqis and foreign fighters that need killing in the amount they should be killed.

There are a few Lefties that actually served. There are some real war heroes that are Lefties like George McGovern, though the idea that Kerry and his dishonestly attained medals is in McGovern's authentic category is ludicrous...

But the fake Vet, fake soldier problem is very real on the Left, and Rush was correct to speak out on it.

Mad Max got pulled over by a Hebrew Speeding down the coast on Thursday night You can say that Mel's an alcoholic But I think he was blitzed on Vegemite

He'd been drinking too much Foster's And his Lexus felt so nice He did 80 miles an hour 90 times as fast as "Passion of the Christ"

Cops claim Mel got anti-Jewish But they say the final straw Was his threat of circumcision And the shout-out to his fans in Hezbollah

Mad Max got pulled over by a Hebrew Flying down my street completely drunk You can say that Mel's an anti-Semite But the cops found kosher vodka in his trunk

Before they slapped the cuffs on Melvin The po-lice said, "Would you please Sign this DUI citation And then these 'Lethal Weapon' DVDs?"

Things got worse down at the station They said Mel's a sexist jerk He called a lady "sugar hooters" Hey Mel, I've tried that line; it doesn't work(Doesn't work!)

Mad Max got pulled over by a Hebrew Racing through my hood in Malibu You can say that Mel was acting psycho He was just rehearsing scenes from "Braveheart II"

After threats of urination He made bail and got to go What a shame he smashed that pay phone It's the same one that they seized from Russell Crowe

I've warned all my Jewish neighbors Better watch your Yiddish butts They should never give a license To a guy who Charlie Manson thinks is nuts

Mad Max got pulled over by a Hebrew Speeding down my sidewalk full of booze You can say that Mel's an anti-Semite But that's not true; he merely hates the Jews

(Sing it with us, Melvin!)Mad Max got pulled over by a Hebrew Speeding down my sidewalk full of booze You can say that Mel's an anti-Semite But that's not true; he merely hates the Jews(Elmo & Patsy)Labels: Jewish conspiracy, anti-semitism, general meshugana ranting